


a countrywoman's perspective

by Hymn



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Beryl before she is Queen Beryl, Gen, Silver Millenium, head canon, lemme know if i need to tag for anything, xenophobia basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-02
Updated: 2006-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 12:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13547445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hymn/pseuds/Hymn
Summary: Beryl, as she watches pale Lunarian soldiers stalk the streets of her simple village, aristocratic and condescending, understands her mother’s words.





	a countrywoman's perspective

**Author's Note:**

> written for sm_monthly

When Beryl was little, she was often told the story of rain. Rain, her mother explained, was what made Earth, their world, so special. It was what set them apart from the rest of the Solar Alliance. It was the difference between humans, and monsters.

Beryl can close her eyes and remember sitting beneath a knarled oak tree, watching the rain come down all around, feeling the occasional drop escape the intricate, over-head coverings of branches and leaves. It was a summer storm, but even the beautiful roar of the rain could not drown out her mother’s words:

_Only on Earth, can we feel the cool rain drops on our bared flesh. Only here can we take part in the beauty of cleansing rain. Only here are we human enough, loving enough, real enough, to live outside, to breathe real air, and not be confined in the elaborate cages they call castles._

And she asked a question:

_Do you know what the rain is, sweet Beryl?_

Beryl, then, had not known. So her mother had explained it to her. The rain fell, because the rulers of their planet were human enough to feel emotion. The rain fell, because their rulers loved them so much they stayed condemned within the Golden Kingdom, deep in the bowels of the earth, and cried sweet tears because they could not feel the sun. But they loved the people enough that they stayed, and thus Earth was bountiful and good, and the rain fell, and made things grow.

_We are not like those other beings_ , her mother said. _Nothing like Venusians or Martians, with their strange, barbaric, cold ways; they say we are coarse, but it is because they have lost the ability to see simple pleasure, to love life; they have given their souls for material advancement._

Those words often echo through her heart and into her brain. Beryl, as she watches pale Lunarian soldiers stalk the streets of her simple village, aristocratic and condescending, understands her mother’s words. Slowly, her hand moves down her side, to where she has a dagger strapped to her leg, beneath her long, cleverly slit skirt. 

Tomorrow, she will leave her little village behind, and go down below the horizon, deep into the magical confines of her world. There, she will be away from frozen monsters; there, she will no longer half-fear waking up to find that she has contracted the monsters’ deadly disease of apathy and ennui; there, she will serve the family she has come to love, for giving her rain, to keep her heart from shriveling up in cowardice as calculating eyes meet hers, too pale for Earth’s harsh day.

She brushes her skirt down, nonchalantly, and smiles tightly. The soldier narrows its eyes, and then continues on its way. _Tomorrow_ , Beryl thinks, and then picks up her basket of laundry to take back inside. She hopes it rains, and that the arrogant Lunarians get stuck in the mud, or slip in a puddle and land on their ass, and get so disgruntled by a little discomfort that they pack up and leave.

Beryl keeps her hopes locked tight in the consonants of _tomorrow_ , and thinks that her mother, dead two summers, would be very proud, indeed.


End file.
